Important This article contains information that shows you how to help
lower security settings or how to turn off security features on a computer. You
can make these changes to work around a specific problem. Before you make these
changes, we recommend that you evaluate the risks that are associated with
implementing this workaround in your particular environment. If you implement
this workaround, take any appropriate additional steps to help protect your
system.

If you are a Small Business customer, find additional troubleshooting and learning resources at the Support for Small Business site.

When you open an e-mail message in Microsoft Outlook Express
on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), the areas in the
e-mail message that are supposed to contain images are blocked. These areas
display a red X placeholder. Additionally, you are prompted with the following
message just above the content window of the e-mail message:

Some pictures have been blocked to help prevent the
sender from identifying your computer. Click here to download
pictures.

This behavior occurs because of the new Block images
and other external content in HTML e-mail security option. By default,
this option is turned on in Outlook Express after you install Windows XP
SP2.

This option helps you avoid viewing potentially offensive material, enables you to decide which images that you want to download, and helps reduce the junk e-mail messages that you receive. We recommend that you leave this option turn on and that you download images for trusted messages only. To do this, click the Infobar to download the images for each message. The Infobar is the banner that is near the top of a trusted e-mail message.

How to enable Internet images in Outlook Express

To manually work around this behavior, turn off the Block
images and other external content in HTML e-mail option. To do this, follow these
steps.

Warning The Block images and other external content in HTML
e-mail option is a security feature that has been included in Windows
XP SP2 to protect your computer against junk e-mail (spam). We recommend that
you do not turn off this option.

Click Start, point to
Programs, and then click Outlook
Express.

On the Tools menu, click
Options, and then click the Security
tab.

Click to clear the Block images and other external
content in HTML e-mail check box.

By default, Outlook Express blocks all HTML content that is
referenced by an external location. Many spam senders include an image URL in
their e-mail messages. The image URL notifies the spam sender's Web server when
you open or preview the message. This kind of image URL is also known as a Web beacon. The following is a sample Web beacon:

<img src=http://myserver/cgi-bin/program?e=your-e-mail-address-here>

If you preview or open an e-mail message that contains this kind
of an image reference, you may make your computer a target for more
spam.

To prevent this kind of Web beacon, where an HTML e-mail message
contains references such as links and banners to an external URL, the Outlook
Express HTML viewer does not automatically render the external content.
Instead, when you open the e-mail message, the areas in the message that
typically contain embedded images instead display a red X
placeholder.

To download external content for an individual e-mail
message so that you can view the blocked images, click the embedded hyperlink
in the following text, just above the content window in the e-mail message:

Some pictures have been blocked to help prevent the sender from identifying your computer. Click here to download pictures.